The Green Period

If I were an artist, this time of year would have to be characterized as my “Green Period.”  It seems that nearly everything seasonal that I have to cook with, especially if it comes in our CSA box, is green.  It’s easier to list the exceptions: strawberries, radishes, a few hot-house tomatoes, the white parts of scallions, a few chard stems…you get the idea.

And so I set out to try a recipe I had put aside for when such green things were back in abundance, one for tacos made with Swiss chard cooked with onions and garlic.  Now, usually I forgo publishing a recipe that didn’t live up to my unreasonably high expectations, or that I just found only so-so.  In this case, while I did find my attempt at this dish only so-so, I love the idea of the dish, the theory, the method, the very lifestyle of it.  I want to, again and again, eat sautéed greens wrapped in tortillas.  I want you to want to, too.

You see, I had a memory of some delicious sautéed greens with lots of garlic and perhaps some vinegar that I had made as a side dish at least a year ago. That’s what I wanted in my tacos. Earthy greens, really garlicky, a little salty.  I added to that memory of flavor with a big handful of cilantro, a bit of chile pepper, and a splash of lime juice.  Somehow, however, I missed my imagined mark.

These tacos weren’t bad, of course.  Since I sautéed my chard instead of boiling it, it maintained its character and avoided that canned spinach pitfall, the risk of which boiled green are always running. (The original recipe called for boiled chard.)  I just wanted more garlic, chile, lime, cilantro, and, okay I’ll admit it, salt flavor. Perhaps in a second run at this recipe I’d be more extreme, but I’m going to print it as I made it, knowing that it really was pretty good. Good enough to make again.  Good enough to promote the idea of stuffing tacos with sautéed greens forevermore.

I also garnished the greens in these tacos with some homemade fresh cheese, from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.  I used the same ingredients and technique as I did for the cottage cheese in this post, but drained off more of the whey and squeezed the fresh curds into a drier cheese.  It went quite nicely with the sautéed greens on my taco.  So did the tortillas I made (I’m more excited about the tortillas than about the rest of the taco).  More on those tortillas in another post.

So, I say enjoy your own little Green Period if you’re going through one now in your refrigerator or garden or farmer’s market or CSA box.  And put some green things in your tacos!

 

Tacos with Sauteed Greens and Fresh Cheese

Based on a recipe in Martha Stewart Living magazine

I like to include the stems with the sautéed chard.  Just finely chop the stems before cooking.

1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil

1 small yellow or white onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves or 2 heads green garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced fresh chile pepper (or to taste)

6 ounces chard (or other dark greens), chopped

2 tablespoons water

¼ teaspoon coarse salt (or more to taste)

1 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped

1 tablespoon lime juice

fresh cheese and flour or corn tortillas for serving

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, or until soft and beginning to brown, stirring frequently.  Add the garlic and chile and cook about 1 minute more, stirring constantly.

2. Add the chard, water and salt and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until the chard is tender and well wilted.  Add the cilantro and cook until the cilantro has wilted.

3.  Add the lime juice and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.  Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.  Serve with fresh cheese on tortillas

Makes about 2 servings.  This recipe can be doubled.

Other recipes like this one: Chard Tart with Feta Cheese and Olives, Chard Soup with Cilantro and Lime, Pasta with Kale, Summer Squash, Olives and Feta Cheese

One year ago: Wheat Berry Salad with Sugar Snap Peas and Lemon Vinaigrette

Two years ago: Rhubarb Yogurt Cake

The Taste of Green: Chard Soup

I tried this recipe for chard soup with cilantro some time ago when I was too busy or lazy or tired (or all three) to record the experience or take any photos. I was so pleasantly surprised by its bright and tangy flavor, however, that I was immediately impatient for another bunch of chard from the CSA so I could try it again. Not only was my impatience eventually rewarded with a small bunch of chard in our final summer/fall share box (don’t worry, there’s a winter share, too) but also with a lovely bunch of cilantro and several sturdy leeks. There were even a few red potatoes left over from a previous week’s box.


This soup is adapted from a recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I basically combined some of the suggested variations and added some lime juice to compliment the cilantro. The original calls for more chard than I had, but my results were still very good. In the recipe below, I offer a range for the amounts of chard (by volume) that I think would probably work. If you have a bumper crop of chard, you might be able to hide even more in this soup.

While I usually like to use an immersion blender for pureed soups like this one, the fibrous nature of the greens makes it a more suitable candidate for the counter-top blender. The immersion blender leaves some leafy pieces behind, which is okay since they are very tender after cooking, but the big blender results in a more silky-smooth soup. Stir some sour cream (mixed with some of the soup to temper it a little) into that puree and you have a creamy, tangy spoonful that will also coat a dunked chunk of rustic bread quite nicely.

I’m finding it difficult to describe the flavor of this soup without using silly foody words like “ethereal,” or “haunting,” or “yummy.” All of the zest and tang from the sour cream, cilantro and lime juice changes the dark, earthy grassiness of the chard into a rounded and creamy flavor. The cilantro contributes a lot in some way, but I can’t say the soup really tastes like cilantro. Perhaps you cilantro loathers might give this a try(?) Then again, I love cilantro, so might not be the best person to suggest such a thing.

It may not be easy to describe the flavor of this soup in meaningful terms, but I will say that if I could choose the taste of the color green, it would be the flavor of Chard Soup with Cilantro and Lime.

Chard Soup with Cilantro and Lime
Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

You could use a medium-size chopped yellow onion in place of the leeks.

2 tablespoons butter
2 medium leeks, white part only, sliced and well-washed
3 medium red potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 ½ teaspoons coarse (kosher) salt, plus more to taste
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
7 cups water, divided
8-10 cups chard, stems removed, chopped
1 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped
juice of 1 lime
1/3 cup sour cream

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a Dutch oven or other large pot. Add the leeks, potatoes and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes or until just beginning to brown.

2. Stir in pepper and paprika. Add ½ cup water. Cook about 1 minute, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.

3. Add the chard and cilantro. Cook a few minutes or until the greens have wilted down, stirring occasionally.

4. Add remaining 6 ½ cups water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, partially cover and gently boil 20-30 minutes or until potatoes are very soft.

5. Remove the soup from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Puree in batches in a blender until all of the soup is smooth. Return to a pot on the burner and stir in the lime juice.

6. In a measuring cup or small bowl, mix together the sour cream and about ½ cup of the pureed soup until smooth. Stir the sour cream mixture into the soup until well blended. Re-warm the soup over low heat if necessary. Taste for salt and add more if desired.

Makes about 6 servings. Leftovers will keep for a few days in the refrigerator. The color may become dull.

Other recipes like this one: Cream of Carrot and Parsnip Soup, Sausage and Spinach Soup

Another Swiss chard recipe: Chard Tart with Feta Cheese and Olives

Chard, not Charred

A few years ago when I announced to Harry that I was making a chard tart, he heard “charred tart,” and was forced to be a bit skeptical. I quickly reassured him that I was, of course, referring to Swiss chard, the dark, leafy greens that are a little bit bitter, a little bit tangy, flavorful but delicate. The most recent bunch of chard we received in a CSA box is known as rainbow chard, simply because, I believe, the bunch consisted of several varieties with different brightly-colored stems.

It was hard for me to know what to do with a bunch of chard when I first subscribed to the CSA. I suppose it could be simply sautéed with garlic and then maybe splashed with a little vinegar and served alongside a protein and a starch, but that used to call up painful images of the blobs of canned spinach that greens enthusiasts of a previous generation insisted were good for me. (I have been able to get over this and will serve greens this way, but not, for the love of all that is good and decent, from a can.) I did find an interesting recipe in Eating Well magazine for a savory tart with chard, ricotta, feta and kalamata olives, however, that allowed me to feature the greens in a little more sophisticated manner.

While this tart, which bears some resemblance to a quiche, may be more sophisticated than a pile of sautéed chard, it is also more complicated. There are several steps to the process, but the good news is that you can prepare for the next phase while waiting for the previous one to be done. For example, you can de-stem and chop the chard (save the stems and sauté them separately), while waiting for the crust to bake, then sauté the greens while waiting for the crust to cool, then prepare the remaining ingredients while waiting for the greens to cool. I don’t know what you can do while waiting for the tart to bake. Have a glass of wine or read a cookbook, I guess.

Along with a filling packed with chard and cheese, this tart has a very good, and pretty easy-to-make crust. Instead of cold shortening or butter, this crust is made with olive oil, which makes it quite forgiving to work with. (It is actually quite similar to the homemade crackers I tried out this spring.) The dough is soft and molds together like Play-Doh, so after rolling it out, you can press the scraps into the pan to cover any thin spots or reinforce the bottom. Flavored with thyme and black pepper, it also tastes very good, and is delightfully crunchy, too.

I’ve made this tart a few times now, so I’ve got the routine down in good order. One problem I had with the original recipe was that there was too much filling for the pan. For one thing, it’s difficult to measure Swiss chard in volume, so it was hard to know whether I was putting in the right amount. I’ve adapted the ingredient list to include a measurement of mass of the chard, so, if you have a kitchen scale, (or have any faith in the produce scale at your market) you’ll know you’ve got the right amount of chard without having to try to cram it into a measuring cup. Also, I decreased the amount of ricotta cheese to reduce the volume even more. This worked well, and there’s still enough gooey stuff in the filling to hold the tart together. In fact, since the crust can actually be quite thick and still be crispy, smaller servings of this tart can be picked up and eaten with the fingers.

Dark greens always seem to be a good match for feta cheese and briny olives, and this tart offers no exception. It’s pretty heavy on the chard, which is the seasonal star after all, and with the reduction in the ricotta that I made, I’m wondering if the chard could have used a pinch of salt. The cheeses and olives tend to cover that arena pretty well, and there’s no added salt in the original recipe. You might want to taste your cheese and olives and make a judgment about how much brininess they may contribute. I’ve added an optional pinch of salt to the recipe below, but that’s one of those few ingredients that are often up to the cook’s judgment anyway. Exercise your own expertise, and, of course, don’t char the tart!

Chard Tart with Feta Cheese and Olives
Adapted from Eating Well Magazine

For the Crust
You can use dried thyme in the crust, but only use about ½ teaspoon, as the flavor can be quite strong.

¾ cup whole wheat pastry flour
¾ cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil, preferably extra virgin
5 tablespoons cold water, divided

1. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the whole wheat pastry flour, all purpose flour, thyme, salt and pepper. Stir in the olive oil and 4 tablespoons of water. If the dough is still dry, stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon of water.

2. Bring the dough together into a ball, kneading gently. Press the ball into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill 15 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Prepare a 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom by lightly oiling it or spraying it with cooking spray. (If your pan has a non-stick surface, you may not need to do this.) On a floured surface, roll the chilled dough into a circle (roughly) about 12 inches in diameter. Transfer the dough to the tart pan and press it into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Trim away any extra dough and use it to patch any holes or press it into the bottom of the pan.

4. Gently prick the surface of the dough on the bottom and sides with a fork. Place the tart pan on a large baking sheet for ease of handling. Bake at 400 F until just beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack at least 15 minutes. (You can prepare the remaining tart ingredients while the crust is baking and cooling and you can leave the crust on the baking sheet.)

For the Filling
It’s actually best to leave a bit of water on the chard leaves after washing them. The extra moisture helps to steam them as they cook. If your leaves are too dry, you can add some water to the pan.

1 tablespoon olive oil, preferably extra virgin
12 ounces chard, any variety (about 6 cups)
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
pinch of salt, optional
2 large eggs
½ cup part skim ricotta cheese
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ cup chopped pitted kalamata olives
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

1. Leave the oven on and at 400 F. Remove the stems from the chard and chop. Set aside. Chop the leaves as well. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chard stems and cook until tender and just beginning to brown, stirring often, about 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, about 1 minute more.

2. Add the chard leaves (and a pinch of salt, if desired) and cook, stirring often, until all of the liquid has evaporated and the leaves are tender and wilted. This will take about 4 minutes. If the pan is too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water. Remove from the heat and allow to cool while preparing the remaining ingredients.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, ricotta, lemon zest and pepper until smooth. Add the cooked chard, olives and feta cheese and stir until well combined. Pour the filling into the baked crust.

4. Bake at 400 F for about 30 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and the filling looks set rather than watery or runny. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before removing the outer ring from the pan and cutting into wedges.

Makes about 6 main dish servings or about 10 appetizer servings. Leftovers can be covered and kept in the refrigerator and re-heat fairly well in the microwave.

Other recipes like this one: Corn and Green Onion Tart with Bacon (great with the season’s fresh corn!), Spinach and Feta Souffle